Dr. Melissa Jones | Mold, Infections & Autism: A Pediatric Neurologist Speaks Out

Who is Dr. Melissa Jones?

Dr. Melissa Jones is a board-certified pediatric neurologist with more than a decade of clinical experience, specializing in complex neuroinflammatory and neuropsychiatric conditions. Trained in conventional pediatric neurology, she completed her fellowship in 2011 and spent years practicing traditional Western medicine before being guided by her patients and their families toward a more integrative approach. Through firsthand clinical observation, she recognized that many conditions labeled as purely neurological or psychiatric were deeply rooted in inflammation, immune dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment, and environmental exposures.
Dr. Jones is widely known for her work with PANS/PANDAS, autism spectrum disorders, dysautonomia, POTS, and other inflammatory brain-based conditions in both children and adults. Her clinical framework emphasizes identifying and treating root causes such as infections (including strep, mycoplasma, Lyme, and viruses), mold exposure, gut dysfunction, immune dysregulation, and toxin overload. She combines targeted diagnostics with personalized treatment strategies that may include antimicrobial therapy, immune modulation, mitochondrial support, dietary interventions, and environmental remediation — often succeeding where symptom-based psychiatric care alone has fallen short.
In recent years, Dr. Jones completed advanced functional medicine training to deepen her expertise in nutrition, supplements, detoxification, and systems-based healing. She currently practices in Houston, Texas, at All In One Peace Wellness, where she works with motivated families seeking answers beyond standard care. Licensed in multiple states, she is passionate about educating both patients and clinicians on the central role of inflammation in brain health — and about restoring function, quality of life, and hope in even the most complex cases.
What did Dr. Melissa and Dr. Scott discuss?

00:00 Intro — Why Neuropsychiatric Conditions Need a New Framework
03:12 Dr. Melissa Jones’ Journey From Conventional Neurology to Root-Cause Care
07:45 What Are PANS & PANDAS? Sudden-Onset Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Explained
13:40 How Infections Trigger OCD, Anxiety, Tics, and Personality Changes
19:55 Why Autism, POTS, and Dysautonomia Are Often Inflammatory Conditions
26:10 The Role of Mold, Environmental Toxins, and Poor Detoxification
33:30 Why Psychiatric Medications Often Miss the Root Cause
38:45 Immune Dysregulation, Mitochondria, and the Inflamed Brain
44:20 Gut Health, Nutrition, and Foundational Healing Strategies
50:30 How Dr. Jones Approaches Testing and Personalized Treatment
56:10 What Parents and Patients Miss When Symptoms Are “All in the Head”
1:02:00 Hope, Healing, and Long-Term Recovery in Complex Neurological Cases
Full Transcript:

Dr. Melissa Jones: [00:00:00] Big topic there. So I definitely look at autism as a very inflammatory condition. I feel like there's a very decent subset that has something genetic going on, and there's. Controversy. If we can change our genetics, maybe we can. Um, but there's maybe eventually, yeah, definitely a, yeah, so definitely a good maybe third of the patients that has got a clear send genetics.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Here's your gene. This is why you have autism that, you know, we're up against, but vast majority. Are inflamed. So I'll do a very similar inflammatory workup that I'll do even on my Pan Pandas patients. Sure, sure. And see tons of inflammation. Tons of gut issues. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Tons of mitochondrial issues. It's a beast.

Dr. Melissa Jones: It's a beast. And I would love for somebody to tell me why there's so many kids coming to see me or I, I mean. I know so many neurologists and [00:01:00] it is the number one referring diagnosis now.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Dr. Melissa Jones, how are you today? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I'm good. How are you? Thanks for having me. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: It's my pleasure to have you on the Modern Heart Podcast, and I know you're relatively new to the world of podcasting, and I'm excited to introduce you. Hopefully, you know, easily. I know you've been on a couple of colleagues podcasts already as well, but your field is a super cool one, and I think more people need to know about it, especially with the frameworks that you're using to think about it.

Dr. Scott Sherr: You know, not just the conventional, conventional way of thinking about things, but also the more alternative, more like, more like, let's call it integrative way of. Approaching, uh, pediatric neurology. So I guess maybe the brief story before we get started, because I think it's important to frame this as far as like.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Why did you [00:02:00] decide to kinda leave or not, not entirely leave, but sort of, you know, bring things out to your practice in more of like an integrative way. And then from there then we'll talk about things like pandas and autism and mold and, and other things as well. Just to keep the listeners excited about what we're gonna chat about because these are these, these are topics that we haven't spoken about on the podcast before.

Dr. Scott Sherr: So maybe just a quick backstory on you and how you kind of got to where we are today. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Awesome. So I am a pediatric neurologist by training. Graduated in 2011 from Fellowship and I was practicing pretty traditional medicine, but I've always been a very, I guess, good listener outta the box kind of thinker.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And so I really love my patients guide me. So I remember early on a mom coming to me saying her child with autism. He went grain free and. Got better and they saw improvements and so I thought, oh, okay. That wasn't my training. No one talked about diet changes for autism when I was training. And um, so she provided a book.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I read the book, I [00:03:00] liked what I read, and so I just started learning from my 

Dr. Scott Sherr: patient. Was it Weak Belly or what was the book out of? Adequate curiosity. You remember? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Was it what, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: what, what book was it that she had you read? Do you remember? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh, grain Brain. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Green bread. Yes. Cool. Same, same author as I was thinking about, okay, continue.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Sorry. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Okay, perfect. Yes. Um, yeah. So yeah, so parents bring me books all the time and I read them. So I just let them guide me and, uh, eventually led me to really say, okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna jump in. And I did a more fun, a true functional fellowship and said, okay, if I'm gonna use supplements, I need to know about supplements.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So did that training, finished that in 2023. So over the last couple years, I have really been in it doing the functional piece of it, not just the western medicine piece of it. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Amazing. Okay. So. You kind of were led by your patients in a lot of ways, because a lot of these patients, um, and I know them from my father's clinical practice for many years as a [00:04:00] chiropractor in New York.

Dr. Scott Sherr: He has over, I think, 300 autistic families in his practice. So a very large practice that that's how he was always taught, like being led by the patients because the moms. No best, right? Because these are people that are with obviously their children all the time, doing their very best to help them. Um, one of the, one of the first things I wanna talk about today, Alyssa, is pandas, because I think this is a very misunderstood, or lack or not a lot of understanding around this particular diagnosis.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Um, I don't know if it's still controversial or not, maybe you can talk about that. But if you can talk about what. Pandas is how it typically presents. Um, your thoughts about it, maybe we'll start there and then we'll kind of go from there to talk about frameworks and how to address it and how to understand it from a functional perspective.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yes, absolutely. So PANDAS stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder associated with strep. Way too long a name. They're going to change it. My understanding is they're [00:05:00] gonna change it to autoimmune encephalitis of the basal ganglia. So that's gonna make it a little bit, it's gonna make it more medical, which is gonna legitimize it more, but a little easier to say maybe.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Although pandas is cute, I joke all the time. I have my panda bear clinic, so, and then there's pans, which is pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome. Kind of two names for the same thing. Pandas is very strep specific. That was the original, um, diagnosis. Yeah. And then we realized over the last 10 years or so, oh, other bugs like mycoplasma or viruses or mold, like other things can cause similar conditions.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So now we kind of say pans, pandas, using it together, and I think all of it'll be replaced by. Autoimmune encephalitis of the basal ganglia in the near future. So basically you have the traditional story is you have a neurotypical child who wakes up one day and has sudden onset of OCD [00:06:00] or restricted eating and terrible anxiety.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Personality changes, irritability, anger. There might be some bedwetting and sleep changes, lots of symptoms, but it's very obvious when you have like the textbook kit, which not all are, but. Yeah. So you see this sudden change and what happens traditionally, you go to the pediatrician, they say, oh, well you gotta get OCD sometime, right?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Like, psychiatric disorders start on the day. So they go see psych and they get on all their meds. Um, but now I'm hoping that the information is out there more and more, especially to the pediatricians and the psychiatrists in the community. Or they can say, wait a minute. Hold on, let's look for infections.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Let's look for inflammatory markers. 'cause maybe this kid is sick because, oh my goodness, when you start them on antibiotics, especially if you can get it really early and not like two years into it, it's amazing. I mean, parents are calling me two to four weeks later, like, I have my kid back. I mean, it's a lifetime movie [00:07:00] story.

Dr. Melissa Jones: It's so cool. So, and I'm going, I didn't use any Abilify or Zoloft like. Not that I don't, but you know, for these cases you don't have to. So it's really cool. And then, then we get the more nuanced cases of, okay, well antibiotics fixed may be part of the problem, but now is there other issues going on like mold or Lyme?

Dr. Melissa Jones: And so it does get complicated and I think this is where a lot of doctors. Kind of throw their hands up like, oh, this is, I don't wanna think about it. And you know, if it's strep, they're, they're like, okay, I can handle strep. But for some of the other things, they, they get nervous or they don't, they don't have the training.

Dr. Melissa Jones: We don't have the training and they just walk. Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Sure. So when somebody presents with this sort of more acute. Symptomatology is, it's much more straightforward, right? Because then if they get to you in time, rather than going to like a curious way of finding you two years later, they find you relatively early.

Dr. Scott Sherr: There are some interventions that can help very, very quickly. Um, [00:08:00] you talked about strep as being the most common bug that's typically thought to cause this. Maybe talk about why that is and also some of the other particular organisms that are associated. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, for sure. So strep. Spec, like specifically it's been studied, I mean, probably since the 18 hundreds for sydenham's chorea.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So we know that the basal ganglia has this molecular mimicry where the strep antibodies cross the brain. They attack the basal ganglia, and you get all of these OCD, these ticks, this anxiety, this pretty well described. So it's, it's kind of interesting to me then that so many doctors say it doesn't exist.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I'm like, oh, okay. So it's an, it's an evolved. Beast from something that's been around for over a hundred years. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Uh, that str But it's interesting 'cause a lot of other viruses and bacterias can do very similar things. Uh, as far as the antibodies to mycoplasma. I see that cause ticks all the time. [00:09:00] And the OCD, so mycoplasma is another really, really common one.

Dr. Melissa Jones: We'll see. Cause pains, pandas, and then, and then we get into the like. The molds and the parasites and the Lyme and things that are a lot harder to check for. You can't just send a to quest, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: but these are often things that you find as associated as etiology, though. You're talking about like chronic mold or acute mold exposure, Lyme disease.

Dr. Scott Sherr: What, what else are you seeing as far as common inciting events? Are those the two most common outside of, you know, strep and, and, and, and other viruses or? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, I think the flu virus is a pretty big one. That being said, I, I, it's really hard because it doesn't happen the day you get the flu, so it's usually like two to four weeks later.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Okay. So same thing. I mean, viruses are. When they say kids get 11 viruses a year, so viruses are so all the time. They're just so much harder to track down. So if I ask a family, well, were they sick in the last two to four weeks? Like, [00:10:00] yeah, we're always sick, you know, so that just gets versus strep is so, yeah, we had to go get antibiotics.

Dr. Melissa Jones: We were really, really sick. So that is, um, viruses are very challenging, but they, I've seen that cause it too. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Got it. So we have viruses, we have lime, we have mold. And so when somebody presents, as somebody would come in and, and with these kinds of presentations, what is your conventional workup and what is the alternative workup that you typically would give or the, you know, integrative workup as you would call it, for somebody coming in.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, so I check a huge panel of labs, which is traditional Quest diagnostic or LabCorp, pick your lab, uh, labs, looking at your strep titers, looking at mycoplasma. I also check, 'cause I do have my functional background now. I check a lot of vir, uh, vitamins and minerals. I'm checking, uh, just overall health of, you know, immune.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Uh, what am I trying to say here? Uh, immunoglobulins. Sure, sure. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: And the cytokines, you know, just kind of basic stuff. How, how healthy are you and [00:11:00] do we see anything just right off the bat? Because if your strep and your mycoplasma come back, stone cold, normal, but your inflammatory markers are off the chart.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Then we get to the second part of your question, like, what else do you order? And then I'm thinking of urine test for mold. I'm looking at comprehensive stool testing for the microbiome and parasites and whatnot, looking at Lyme and Bartonella testing. So then I'll kind of go down that rabbit hole. I.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Unless I have a very motivated family, in which case we do it all on day one, but, got it. That's kind of how I'll do it. Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Got it. So you have like a stepwise progression here for people, which makes a lot of sense, right? 'cause you don't wanna, you know, have somebody spend a lot of money without, if you get kind of a good sense of maybe what might be the first tier of testing versus the second tier of testing.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right? So, so once you find, find the diagnosis, say it's more like not a conventional. Straightforward one, like, it's not like strep or mycoplasm because you can give antimicrobials. Like what is your, like if somebody has Lyme or mold, like how do you think about remediating that or how do you, how do you address that in, in a child typically?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Step one is getting out of the mold. So we gotta figure out where it [00:12:00] is. Is it the house? Is it their school? What's the environment? Um, that's a huge challenge and it's very, oh, cost exorbitant. I mean, I feel for some of these families where they find, especially in Houston, we'll find mold behind every wall.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And you really wanna have a good sense that this is the problem before you start saying, yeah, spend 20, 30, 40, a hundred grand on a, a remediation. Yes. So we do like the urine testing. We kind of prove like the inflammatory markers are high, there's tons of mold in the urine. Do testing of the house, get them out of the house or remediate the house.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And then I do binders. Um, romine is with the shoemaker protocol. Yeah, pretty standard. Um, yeah, mold. And if I have a kid that can't handle it or maybe wants to do a little more natural approach, well there's tons of over the counter binders of zeolite and activated charcoal and whatnot that we'll use as well.

Dr. Scott Sherr: So what is your sense here? Like, this is a question I've I remember from way back a little bit. So like, typically the, the [00:13:00] drugs we would use in a conventional world would be like steroids, IVIG plasmapheresis for things like this, but like mm-hmm. How do you balance the use of these things with, you know, also addressing sort of the root, you know, reason why.

Dr. Scott Sherr: So if it's, you know, an infections, if it's toxins or environment, if it's mold, how do you typically navigate? I'm sure it's very individualized, you know, with each patient, but do you have like a sense of, do you need to. Downregulate their immune system immediately or is it typically something where you try to focus on you building up the foundation first and then hopefully things kinda get better on the top end as a result of doing that?

Dr. Scott Sherr: Or do you have a typical approach there? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, great question. 'cause it is, it is very individualized. If I have a child come in with unbelievable OCD, can't function, can't go to school, I'm typically gonna hit that a little bit harder with steroids or maybe scheduled Motrin. Something that in theory we would go, well, that's not.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Quote, good for us. Right, right. Like, that's not natural. That's, that's the opposite of your functional approach. But at the same time, it works and it gets the kid functioning. Again, same thing [00:14:00] with antimicrobials. Right. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: You know, these are the things we gotta do. Yeah. To get the kid functioning again, if it's.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I always approach it as before we go to IVIG, and this might change as we learn more and more about IVIG and its role in Pan Pandas, but I approach it as we have gotta kill the organism. So you've gotta kill the Lyme, you've gotta kill the mold or get rid of the mold, kill the strep, kill the mycoplasma before you try to go in and reset the immune system because.

Dr. Melissa Jones: If there's active strep otherwise, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: And you do IVIG, that might help a little bit. It's, you know, messing with the immune system, which is great potentially, but then the streps gonna grow right back. The line's gonna come right back. So I tend to err on the side of really focusing on treating whatever it is we find.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And then if we get down the road where. Okay. I feel pretty confident we've filled the strep, but these are still, antibodies are a thousand. Like the immune system is just off the charts. Yeah. Then I'll start to look into the [00:15:00] IVIG plasmapheresis is amazing. Like that's in all the algorithms. I don't have anywhere in Houston that will do it.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So if I get to a point where I'm even thinking, oh man, nothing's working. We gotta do plasmapheresis, unfortunately, at least here. Patients would have to travel. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. Got it. So you don't have that option over there. Gotcha. So that makes a sense, a lot of sense. Right. You, you wanna, you, you wanna address the sort of the cause, the infection, et cetera.

Dr. Scott Sherr: The mold, the line as much as you can first. 'cause no matter what you do, if you're still not working on that part and you are working on the immune system modulation part, you're gonna, you're gonna be like, you know, pissing in the ocean as I like to say. There's very little you can do over the long, um, do you find.

Dr. Scott Sherr: From a presentation perspective, you mentioned this briefly in your comments by email to me before we started, but like you were saying this, you know, pediatric, pediatric disease, but, or is it, so tell me what you mean by that. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh, yeah, so, so I have had a lot of parents over the years go, Hey, can you see me?

Dr. Melissa Jones: I've had OCD since I was 12, and I'm like, sure. Now I [00:16:00] feel a little bit more confident in seeing adults. And I will check labs and they have really high strep titers or mycoplasma, and I'm going, what is happening? So that's really hard because there is no acute onset, right? Like they've had it for 20, 30 years.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Sure. Potentially. Um, but I am seeing success stories of even treating PA parents. I call 'em parents, older adults that have had similar symptoms for a long time. And we do the testing. They're super inflamed and. They see positive results. Uh, it, it's harder even in a 12-year-old if you've had symptoms since you were six.

Dr. Melissa Jones: The longer you've had it, the harder it is to kick. So that's the role of disease. Right. But 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yeah, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: still seeing positives, so it's kind of cool. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. I mean in that capacity, right. We talk about this a lot. The hard, longer, you've had something to the harder it is to treat. Do you think that's because there's more of an autoimmune component to that point and there's less sort of overall infection or like specific [00:17:00] like to address on that side?

Dr. Scott Sherr: Or what do you think is the issue here in this case? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I can see it go so many ways. I definitely feel there's an autoimmune piece to it. I feel like inflammation, similar to where you would think of as like this long haul COVID, like the cytokine storms that happen, like things, just the train goes down the track and we can't stop it anymore.

Dr. Melissa Jones: But I also think, especially when we're dealing with neuropsychiatric things, you've lived your life with OCD. Trained your brain, if you will, to have all of these issues. You, you don't know what it's even like to, to not have OCD. Yeah. And medicine's never worked. That's always the story I'll hear. Um, and so I think that becomes your personality, becomes who you are.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So I think that also gets really hard to, to fix versus if you remember. Being calm and stable two weeks ago. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Of course 

Dr. Melissa Jones: it's not that hard to come back from that, so, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: right. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. I think there's just a lot of pieces to it that 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Hopefully find out over the next 10 years. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: I [00:18:00] wonder. Um, you know, I don't know if there this is being used yet in, in, in kids or, or not, but like in adults that have chronic complex medical illness.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Um, oftentimes I have a lot of my colleagues or several of my colleagues that are using things like ketamine, um, as a way to help with resetting that sort of psychological associations with e disease or trauma or like, you know, these kids are going in and out of hospitals and things like that. Like that's a big deal.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Like, are there any. Kind of advanced therapies or cutting edge things that are working on the neuropsychological side of things for these kids is the same at the 

same 

Dr. Melissa Jones: time. Yeah, no, that's great. We use ketamine for kids too. We do. I have several patients. Yeah. It's again, expensive, harder to get. A lot of these other modalities are, but um, I do see that work.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I, again, I think there's a place for it. I don't know if it would completely modulate everything if you were actively. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Sure. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: You know, in the thick of it. Sick. But to your, to what you're saying as far as, Hey, okay, I've, I've fixed your, I fixed your inflammation. Now we [00:19:00] need to reset. The nervous system or reset your thinking.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. And I often find, at least in adults, but you know, you're, you're with kids. I don't imagine it would be a whole lot different, but you tell me like that if you have that sort of sympathetic spiral as I call it, where like the, you're always in constant fight or flight, no matter how much you do from a.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Biophysical per or biochemistry perspective, you're still running up against these, you know, a kid that's hyperactive, that's not sleeping. That, I mean, and so working on the mitochondria, working on, you know, getting rid of these, these infections is gonna help. But there has to be, I would imagine, like an addressing of the neuropsychological aspect of things as well.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, and to your point, I often not, again, my love is not psychiatric medications, but there's a role for some of that where it's like, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yeah, okay, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: we are going to be dealing with this OCD for the next, however long while we're treating your pan pandas, and we need a little bit of Zoloft to take the agile or propranolol, right.

Dr. Melissa Jones: For fight or flight. Like something like that. Just, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yeah, Ronald's great. Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Calm it [00:20:00] down. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Calm it down so we can get where we need to be. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: And not train the brain as much, if that makes sense. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. That we're, yeah. No, I get that 

Dr. Melissa Jones: flight. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. Just trying to get outta that. I mean, from a ketamine perspective, what have you seen, just out of curiosity, any particular stories or things you can remember?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, I like ketamine. I think the biggest thing I've seen though is it's short lived. Short lived, so I've, yeah, like I just have amazing stories of patients feeling very regulated and then Okay. It wears all. Okay. So at the cost that it is, at least in Houston, it is hard to, yeah, continue that. But I definitely see it work.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I just, yeah, I see these relapses and wearing off effects. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Understood. Okay, well that's really helpful. So, you know, overall the sort of meta here is that like pan pandas is, you know, a multifactorial. Sort of presentation. It can happen in kids, it can happen in adults in presentation. Usually you get infected.

Dr. Scott Sherr: This, this sort of presents in it and kids may not be recognized and a such of potential inciting factors and like having a very holistic way of [00:21:00] approaching it as you do it could be very, very beneficial. Um, when it comes to, let, let's go with autism for a minute because 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yes, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: I, I know you mentioned before we started recording that more and more families were coming to see you with kids with autistic.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Uh, spectrum. Um, what is your approach now from, um, you know, from an etiology perspective? You know, what are your thoughts there? You know, are, are there some defined things that you've realized over time that absolutely contribute? Um mm-hmm. And then from there, maybe your framework of how you kind of work it up.

Dr. Scott Sherr: And I guess that kind of all goes together. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, big topic there. So I definitely look at autism as a very inflammatory condition. I think. Well, I take that back. I feel like there is a very decent subset that has something genetic going on, and there's. Controversy. If we can change our genetics, maybe we can.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Um, but there's eventually, yeah, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: there's 

Dr. Melissa Jones: definitely a, yeah. So definitely a good maybe third of the patients that has got a clear send [00:22:00] genetics. Here's your gene. This is why you have autism that, you know, we're up against, but vast majority. Are inflamed. So I'll do a very similar inflammatory workup that I'll do even on my Pan Pandas patients.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Sure, sure. And see tons of inflammation. Tons of gut issues. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Tons of mitochondrial issues. It's a beast. It's a beast. And I would love for somebody to tell me why there's so many kids coming to see me or I, I mean. I know so many neurologists and it is the number one referring diagnosis now, whereas 15 years ago, migraines, seizures, some ticks, which now I view as pans pandas, but that was a pretty big one.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Ticks, migraines and epilepsy were so common, and now it's autism. Autism or autism. Plus, I have seizures and I have autism. I have this and I have autism, and I'm going, oh my gosh. Like does, does everyone have autism now? 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So do you think it's one diagnosis? Do you think it's one thing, or do [00:23:00] you think it's multiple different things?

Dr. Scott Sherr: All sort of given the same di, same ti um, same terminology or same diagnosis? Same name. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Well, there's clearly a spectrum, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: right? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: So it a little bit irked to me when they changed the DSM five to bring in like the Asperger's into the autism world because that's very different if you have a patient with autism, with Asperger's or high functioning autism.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And not to minimize their challenges 'cause Oh my goodness. Yes, totally. Yeah. Challenges. But they're verbal and they are maybe have a normal IQ or a high IQ versus a nonverbal autistic patient is just a very different patient. So of course, yeah, there is some spread there that's different. But if you were to just kind of look at them as a whole, I still see a ton of inflammation.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Right. Presenting in different, different ways. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Different ways. Saying, you said initially. Around gut inflammation. Is that one of sort of like the, the common denominators that you see for almost everybody that has this diagnosis? I mean, [00:24:00] there's been controversy around this, right? Because there were some studies that were polled from a number of journals a number of years ago related to vaccines and, and we don't have to get into that part, but like in the sense of.

Dr. Scott Sherr: What is your sense, like, I guess, and then with that sort of question is, or that that idea is when you optimize the gut, like how do you typically approach this in a kid? What's your perspective? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Oh my gosh. And it depends on the kid because of course I'll have some autistic patients who will give, tell, take whatever I give 'em.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yay. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Of course. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Others? Not that 

Dr. Scott Sherr: many, I'm sure. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Uh, yeah. There's others that have severe sensory issues that, oh my word. I mean, it's easy enough for me to say gluten-free. And then of course. They're gonna die. 'cause they're not gonna eat. And they're not gonna eat. So it's not like, I've heard this. Well start your kid eventually, if they're hungry enough, they'll eat.

Dr. Melissa Jones: No, no. That is not in fact what happens. So it is, it's a very tricky situation. I, so I, and for kids on the spectrum, I'm also looking at heavy metals. I see quite a few. There's, there's some kind of detox issue, like they [00:25:00] don't detox. I mean, I can't tell you how many kids on the spectrum I have that have it.

Dr. Melissa Jones: They have it all have. Bacteria, viruses, molds, anything in the tons of environmental toxins. They've got heavy metals. It's how you're four. Like how do you have this, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: how is that possible? Yeah, right. I mean, we know that. We know that the environment, there's 

Dr. Melissa Jones: not been going 

Dr. Scott Sherr: on. We know our environment's much more toxic.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Everything from like the bedsheets and things like that from the kids in their, and their cribs to the plasticizers and things like that. But what you're kind of driving at is there's some sort of universal, maybe not one thing, but maybe like several things that are happening that are just preventing them from, you know, at least getting rid of most of the stuff that.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Normal or neurotypical patient, neurotypical kids would. Right, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: right. I mean, 'cause you could look in the same family and you'll have two siblings that same age. So clearly they're all being exposed to the same toxins. Same mom and two are neurotypical and one is severe autistic. That kid is so [00:26:00] sick. I mean, really medically sick is how I look at them.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Because you look, look at their testing and you're like, oh, and why are we not putting 'em in the hospital? But we're not. They're, they're walking around. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Well, I mean, but if you did normal labs in this kind of kid Right, it would be, they'd probably be fine. Right? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Totally. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: They'd be, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: their liver and kidneys are fine.

Dr. Melissa Jones: They're white count. We're fine. Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. But then you're saying, but what would, what is scaring you so much? Is it It's their gut for the most part. What are the what? I mean you're seeing inflammatory markers, everything. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, so the inflammatory markers are often, like their cytokine profiles are usually off the charts there.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And again, nobody, if you talk to almost any other neurologist, they'd be like cytokine profile. Exactly. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. So that, and. Uh, every kid's, I always say if I have 10 autistic kids, I have 10 different kids. The gut is a huge battle for all, probably most of us. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Um, so that I'm probably gonna find something wrong with the gut, but I sometimes I'm finding heavy metals and then I'm finding molds, and so it just, it can compound.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I really wouldn't even say, oh yeah, it's all the gut. [00:27:00] Maybe it is. Maybe that's the gateway. Maybe that's the, the piece of the puzzle that, you know, we're all being born with these horrible guts and that's the piece that is making everything else worse. I don't know, but 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, there's been all these associations, right?

Dr. Scott Sherr: I was reading this one not too long ago about, you know, obviously, uh, the, the perinatal period, right? When, if moms have certain medications right. That increase their risk, I think, I think Tylenol is one of them, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. An antidepressants or another one. Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: So scary. But I took Tylenol while I was pregnant with my two girls.

Dr. Melissa Jones: You know, it's like, why? What's the threshold? Why is this causing autism in some and not others? 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. And then that, this kind of goes back to what you said with sort of genetics detoxification capacity. Uh, well, my dad always talks about my father, Dr. Ellen, Sherry. Like, he always talks about like your, like a threshold, right?

Dr. Scott Sherr: Like everybody has their own threshold. I have a friend. Here in Colorado, um, Dr. Joe Carnahan, who's been on the podcast, she's a really, a really smart lady. She calls it your, [00:28:00] your bucket, your toxic bucket. Yeah. Yes. You know, and some, some people have smaller buckets. Um, and then once they fell over, things kind of go down the cliff.

Dr. Scott Sherr: And then other people have larger buckets. Like if you're, everybody in your family lived until they were 105, you probably have a larger toxic bucket than everybody die when they're 40 years old. So, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: And there's definitely some genetic predispositions here, so maybe you could, if there's any, can you think of any sort of save stories in this world that you're like, wow, we had this autistic kid come in, or, or a family and like, we did X, Y, Z.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Maybe like, take us through a workup. Um, maybe like normal labs and then cytokines were crazy and then like, I think that would be kind of a fun and cool way to kind of think about this in real time. I, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: a lot of this, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: I'm sure you do. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I, I think my favorite actually is a child that was on the spectrum.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Who then developed pants pandas, which is very challenging to diagnose when you already have a kid that's on the spectrum. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yes, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: there was a clear change and he became nonverbal. So he was delayed but lost it all and he was over the age of 10, so he was [00:29:00] far too old to have lost verbal skills. And so the parents knew something was terribly wrong and, um.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Also just completely went into his own world. Well, I mean, the family has videos of how he was acting, you know, a year earlier and yes, challenges, but very interactive comparatively, just completely went into his own world and was nonverbal. It was, and I walk in the room, I'm like, there's no, how am I supposed to bring this child back from?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Like, what am I, what am I gonna do here? Yeah. And this was very early on in my learning of, of all of this. And, but I had a very, he was a very motivated, um, uh, it was a very motivated family. Sure. And so we found the toxins. We went hunting and we found mold and, um. All kinds of gut issues. And they were motivated.

Dr. Melissa Jones: They were like, they went gluten free and dairy free, and they did all the detox [00:30:00] regimens you could think of, and just slowly, it was amazing. Just slowly came back and it took months. And so I always say that too, like people, all, everybody once a quick fix, right? And we're we, and we live in this microwave society where we're like, here's your pill, and, and there you go.

Dr. Melissa Jones: You get better. But when we're dealing with autism. There's very rarely a quick fix. And so it took probably a total of two years of doing all this, but seeing that slow, steady, and he had become really aggressive and was on antipsychotics, we were able to take him off all prescription medications.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Amazing. Yeah, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: and it was, it was unbelievable career changer really, because this completely regressive, nonverbal autistic child who anybody else would've said, well, you were autistic to begin with. Stop. I don't know. You know, like, I think that's what anybody else would've said. And we just did, went through this pathway and I mean, literally he's in high school now, completely verbal, completely interactive, [00:31:00] swim, swimming.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I mean, he's just this 

Dr. Scott Sherr: very cool. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Adorable, wonderfully functioning person that I'm going, what, how did mold and toxins do that? 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: It's cool, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: right? When you're doing a, a workup, not a workup, when you're doing a treatment program for this, like what are some of the major things that you found from a supplement perspective and a dietary perspective that have been the most transformative?

Dr. Scott Sherr: I know you mentioned gluten and dairy free. I remember my dad back in like the early, even when I was in. Probably when I was like five or seven. I remember being in his office and like in the 1980s, him taking people off of dairy and their allergies and their asthma getting better. It's kinda my first recollections of dietary changes, making a big difference.

Dr. Scott Sherr: But What have you seen to be the biggest movers and pushers when it comes to dietary changes? Lifestyle changes, um, and supplementation. I know like it's gonna be individuals depending on the person, but. But there's usually like a, maybe a number of things you've found to be the most effective here. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I, I mean, I joke all the time, you're not going to leave my office without me saying you need to [00:32:00] go gluten-free and here's. Here's some supplements. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay? Yeah, sure. So, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: but I'm like, can't hurt. Let's try this while we're getting the ball rolling with all your testing. So I do something for mitochondrial support, depends on the age.

Dr. Melissa Jones: If it's an autistic, um, kiddo that'll do like spectrum Me, which is the powder. It's got a lot of good mitochondrial support in there. There's a lot of variations on that. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Do you know what it has in there? Outta curiosity? What? Send support. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh yeah, it's got, so it's got the nac, which I love. Yeah. Some aspect of glutathione.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And it's got, um, amino acids and it's got, um, I'm trying to think what else. Like thianine, it's got some good stuff in there. Cool. It's gonna be okay. It's generic, it's not specific, but it's a nice cocktail to where I'm like, Hey, before we. Leave, let's do something, right. We're trying. So, and that's more, um, if I'm thinking more autism, you know, where I'm feeling you need some mitochondrial support, maybe not necessarily.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Acute pants pandas. But yeah, so some type of mitochondria support. If I have a [00:33:00] kid that could swallow pills, I mean, there's so many different products out on the market, but mitochondrial support, I usually do some aspect of omegas, whether fish oil or algae based. And then, um, um, pretty much I recommend a gluten-free diet.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I don't know that there's a whole lot positive we can say about gluten anymore in America, maybe other countries. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So gluten-free. What about dairy free? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. So, and this depends on the kids, so I don't wanna make huge takeaway all their food. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Got 

Dr. Melissa Jones: it. On day one until we got it, until we do some stool testing and kind of see where we're at.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Sure. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I, I'm, oh, I mean, I'll always, um, educate, like, let's not go to McDonald's. It is shocking how many people go to fast food. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, I'm always shocked. Don't do 

Dr. Melissa Jones: it four times a week. Like that's not even abnormal. So I really educate on, we need to cut out the omega sixes and the seed oils. We need to cut out the, the fast food.

Dr. Melissa Jones: We need to stop doing dyes and preservatives and just all the toxins that we [00:34:00] are inundated with. So, but small changes, um, day by day. Because if you, again, if you have a really sensory kid who's a picky eater, I mean, you might. They take everything outta their diet. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right. So you mentioned there, which, which all of which I appreciate something small about the environment.

Dr. Scott Sherr: So tell me about what the environment, what are you looking for there? Are you looking for what's toxic in the environment and trying to change that or how, I mean, I get you have to kinda meet people where they are, but what are some of the things you typically would recommend a family do? Um, mean this is not just, I mean this is for all of us, right?

Dr. Scott Sherr: Trying to keep our, I know environments less toxic, but what, but what are the things that you typically recommend to here? Like as 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Low, let's call 'em low hanging fruits. Right. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh yes. Awesome. So, low hanging fruit, I would say get rid of plastic. So I am going glass Tupperware, you know, your stainless steel water bottles.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Get rid of your regular plastic water bottles. Um, and think I think of anything that's gonna hold food or drink and pla and utensils and plates and all that fun stuff. Gotcha. You can get bamboo, you can get stainless steel. There's so many choices. [00:35:00] So I try to say, uh, really focus on removing the plastics when.

Dr. Melissa Jones: We can, although then this latest article I just read said, well, glass bottles have plastic in them now, so we can't wait. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. Although that particular article was talking about some glass bottles that had plastic in the, in the actual caps, and it was actually the plastic cap that was doing it. So just for clarity.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. Yeah, I know which were talking about. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Very overwhelming though, when you're like, really great. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, I talked a bit about this with my wife all the time. There's only so much, I mean, you can do, right? It's very difficult. Like even finding a toothbrush that's not made a plastic is very difficult to do mm-hmm.

Dr. Scott Sherr: These days. Especially if you want like a fast one, right? Or like, do you wanna have fluoride in your toothpaste or not? And like, anyway, the, the decisions are, are endless and I get that. Yes. But it, but it sounds like you try to give them basic lifestyle advice and then you can you 

Dr. Melissa Jones: dial in from there.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Let's try to be more organic. Let's try to avoid the fast foods and the preservatives, and these are things we're in control of. To try to change. We're not in control of air pollution. We [00:36:00] have to go outside and breathe. I want you to go outside and breathe and Yes. See the sun and breathe the quote fresh air.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Not in Houston, but 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: right. Breathe the air, so, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: or get some, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: yeah, but you know, it is, I can't control that. So we have to, what we can control as far as what we're eating on, what we're drinking from. I love reverse osmosis water. Sure. So I'm often recommending there's tons of arsenic in our Houston water supply.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I'm like, let's just 

Dr. Scott Sherr: gotta filter it. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Mix that in the bud. Yeah. They're not that expensive. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I agree. I mean, I, so we have a nonprofit that's actually, that sponsors the podcast. It's called Health Optimization Medicine and Practice. And we teach practitioners on how to optimize health.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Of their patients and clients. And it's, it's a whole spectrum, right? Like you wanna look at laboratory data, but you wanna change their circadian rhythms, you wanna optimize their exposures. You wanna see what they're doing from a diet perspective and a livestock perspective. But it's, it's often very overwhelming, especially for kids and their parents because, I mean, I have four of them.

Dr. Scott Sherr: I know how difficult it is to try to get one of my kids to go gluten-free because he has a rash [00:37:00] on his leg or something. And so it's, it's, uh, it can be intense. When it comes down to, uh, do you have experience with long COVID as well? Are you're doing a lot of long COVID in the clinic or is that more Okay, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: cross my plate?

Dr. Scott Sherr: It's mostly for pediatrics and not, so 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I've had a couple, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yeah, yeah, yeah. But you also mentioned, at least before we were recording it, the positional, uh, hypertension, tachycardia syndromes, pots conditions. Do you see a lot of that in clinical practice? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I do. So before I did more functional stuff, um, I was kind of known as the dysautonomia specialist of my area.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Okay. Because I was one of the few neurologists who would willingly see that patient population. So many docs were like, oh, I don't wanna deal with it. So I became very well versed in traditional western medicine ways of treating dysautonomia and pots. And then I realized. It's all inflammation. I mean, it all just came back to it and I'm like, oh my gosh.

Dr. Melissa Jones: You have Lyme, you have Bartonella, you have Babesia. And now you start to treat that [00:38:00] and these, these patients get better. So again, all of these things are all connected. They present in different ways, in different ages, but they're connected. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So in the end, they're all inflammatory conditions, is what it's coming down to.

Dr. Scott Sherr: And the question is what's causing it? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yep. Absolutely. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: And then from there you kind of decide where your, where your workup's gonna go and where your therapies are gonna go, um, from a positional, hypertension, tachycardia syndrome perspective. Um, what do you feel like is some, you know, some golden nuggets or some clinical pearls here?

Dr. Scott Sherr: I, I think what I'm kind of driving at here, Melissa, is. We have a lot of, you know, clinicians that are listening to this podcast, they're gonna see a lot of these kinds of patients. Um, they're gonna see long COVID patients, they're gonna see OCD patients, mental health patients, inflammatory patients. Like what do you feel like, um, or some, some clinical pearls here for like non-specialists like yourself, like pediatric neurologists, like you, as to what they can do or what they, they should be doing when they, when these patients present.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yes. I mean, you've gotta stay active. That, I think, is the number one thing. [00:39:00] It's so easy to get deconditioned when you have pots. You feel terrible every time you stand up. You wanna pass out. But that is the worst. The, the patients that have done the best regardless of the cause, the patients of mine that have done the best have stayed.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Active and you don't have to run a marathon, just stay active. Don't let the deconditioning happen. And we have to support that sometimes with pharmaceuticals. So, you know, I'm, uh, water and salt people get so frustrated 'cause they're like, oh, I went to the cardiologist and they said, just drink more water and eat salt.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And I'm like, well that is important. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: like. You gotta be hydrated. Um, so you know, you gotta start with the basics. Stay active, whatever that means, get some physical therapy involved. Um, we have some great dysautonomia physical therapists in Houston, so I work very closely with them. And then if you wanna go down the rabbit hole, I'm here.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I'm ready to go to see like what's the root cause, why did this start? Um, but I, I have so many patients before I even knew [00:40:00] about the inflammatory nature of it that I was helping, because I'm getting to the just foundational blood pressure, heart rate management and staying active. So. That's my, my, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: so it's one of the things where like, at least in adults, you know, when you have a arthritis in your knee, the less you do, the more arthritis you get.

Dr. Scott Sherr: It's the sort of same idea with with pots in that case. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yep. Absolutely. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Got it. Okay. And so, um, just a curious question, and if you don't have any, um, experience with this, it would be totally okay, but from a mitochondrial perspective and from a blood pressure perspective, have you ever played around with low dose methylene blue at all in these patient populations yet?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh my gosh, I'm getting there. Okay. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: I've 

Dr. Melissa Jones: had a couple patients, um. Do some methylene blue, but I wouldn't say I have a ton of experience with it. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, just the reason why I mentioned is that I work with a couple of providers that see a lot of POTS patients and, uh, a decent amount of autistic kids that are using the lower doses of methylene blue from a mitochondrial perspective as something to help support mitochondrial function.

Dr. Scott Sherr: My father does it in his clinical [00:41:00] practice, sees benefits there. Um. Have you found any, any other, like from an anti-inflammatory perspective, um, we talked about, you're talking mitochondrial support, you talked about NAC and things like that. Are there any other, like any other things like, you know, mushrooms or plants or things like that?

Dr. Scott Sherr: You're kind of your go-tos when it comes to inflammatory support? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: I love turmeric, so that's, yeah. I'm like some type of glutathione, turmeric, omegas, those are very foundational in my world, personally and for my patients. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Mm-hmm. Yeah, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: and then I'm open. I feel like that's a little bit where supplements get a bad wrap is there's so many anti-inflammatory supplements out there.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Then they're, and they're all good. So families come to me and go, what do you think about that one? I'm cool. What do you think about that one? Cool. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: It 

Dr. Melissa Jones: be 

Dr. Scott Sherr: a lot different things, right? Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: You can't take 40 supplements or you, I don't think we should be taking 40 supplements. I feel like you, you have to pick, you know, what makes the most sense for your patient that's right in front of you or what they wanna try or what they're excited about.

Dr. Melissa Jones: And you, you [00:42:00] can't do it all. But there's, there's so many out there. So for me personally, I'm like, turmeric, my neck and my omegas, that's foundational, but that doesn't mean it's the right. Answer, like, there's other, you could supplement turmeric for, you know, pick, pick something else and 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Gotcha. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: And you're directing, of course, your therapies, right, your medications, and also your supplements to what people, what these kids need.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Um, one, one thing that I have, um, that I've asked a couple pediatricians about interesting. Your take on it is like, they're very difficult to know what their normal levels are for various things for kids. Right. Um, because most of these laboratory tests were done on adults. Um, I mean, sometimes it's obvious I guess, if you have, you know, mold to the KBIs than it is mold.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Right? But like, how do you typically. How would you, I guess you probably learned how to do this, but how do you interpret some of the lab testing in, in the in, in that sort of frame, knowing that a lot of it's been done on adults and you're trying to use it on kids? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. I would say honestly, there's probably not as big of a difference between kids and adults as you would.

Dr. Scott Sherr: [00:43:00] Okay. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: You think? 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. Now babies are different. I've, baby babies have very different levels. Um, but as you get into school age and adults, um, yes, there's some fluctuations, especially when you're thinking about things like hemoglobin and iron levels and things like that. But not as much as, especially in the cytokine world, not as much as you would think.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I feel like we can use a lot of the reasonably standard levels, even for my school age and above. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Cool. Cool. All right. Well this has been super helpful, Melissa. I, I love the kind of tour de force of, of integrative neurology and pediatric neurology specifically. I think my real goal for having you on is to give you a platform to talk about, you know, basically what we talk about all the time in this podcast in various ways, which, which is, you know, inflammation and then how it presents and what some of the inciting factors are and, and how you can work it up and like.

Dr. Scott Sherr: It's a very similar frame to working out somebody that has an, an adult autoimmune disease, for example. Um, and then or adults long COVID and having long COVID presentation. Right? Although there's obviously the [00:44:00] sort of nuanced, uh, discussions about how you actually treat heavy metal poisoning or heavy metal overload or how you treat mold and Lyme and think maybe that's for a different day, uh, because I'm sure it's gonna change depending on the person and, and things.

Dr. Scott Sherr: But, um, I had some. Rapid fire questions for you. I was going to ask, um, these are gonna be, you know, you can keep the answers short. If you wanna go longer, you can, but these are just kind of be like a little bit fun. Um, but also obviously I think, you know, they, they, they, they're appropriate for our conversations, what it comes down to.

Dr. Scott Sherr: So, okay. Ready for my questions? Okay. Question one. If you had to ban one lab test forever because it's overused or useless, which one would it be? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh, my word. I have to ban a lab test. I love lab tests. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: If there's one that you always use, like for me to give you example. It's like almost always checking a folate level in, in an adult is stupid.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Like, you know, like, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: oh 

Dr. Scott Sherr: my gosh, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: a folate level is stupid. Yeah. Okay. I had, you know why I didn't think about it? Because I never check it. That's 

Dr. Scott Sherr: hilarious. There you go. So you don't check it because you, it's not stupid, so you [00:45:00] don't check it. Go. Yeah. Oh 

Dr. Melissa Jones: my 

God. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: You 

Dr. Melissa Jones: need methylated vitamin levels. Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Fol, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: can you get methylated vitamin levels? I can get, I mean, that would be lovely if we can. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: You'd have to do a spinal tap, which is totally irrelevant. Not right. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: That's not gonna work. But you can get, so you can get methylated levels of, of vitamins by doing a spinal tap. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. You can check your, well, I shouldn't say methylated.

Dr. Melissa Jones: You can check your cerebral folate levels, which is what everybody's worried about. Right. So that's the only way to, is the spinal tap. So if 

Dr. Scott Sherr: you're right, so why would we, okay, go ahead. I 

Dr. Melissa Jones: was gonna say, if you're, if you have M-T-H-F-R and you think, okay, my folate levels are low, that doesn't mean your brain folate levels are low, and sure, you have no idea.

Dr. Scott Sherr: It's only way I know your brain folate level would be to actually get a CSF folate. Um, are you doing any CSF testing at all for anything typically or, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: yeah, I used to and then it became not helpful. That would probably be more stuff I would ban. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. Well there you go. Perfect. Let's 

Dr. Melissa Jones: just not, it's so 

Dr. Scott Sherr: invasive.

Dr. Melissa Jones: I stopped putting kids [00:46:00] through it. Why? 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. I love that. That's great. Okay. Um, you know, what is the next question? What is the craziest symptom you've seen related to pans Pandas before? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Schizophrenic symptoms 

Dr. Scott Sherr: schizo, like full on, full on schizophrenia. How old? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Teenager. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Wow. Okay. And then you addressed the pans, pandas and the schizophrenic symptoms went away?

Dr. Melissa Jones: Totally. 100% goes away. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. Alright. It's 

Dr. Melissa Jones: crazy. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: I know. Okay. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: It's so fun. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Um, that's, I mean, it's kind of a crazy, crazy thing. Okay. Um, next one. Um, what is the biggest myth about mold toxicity you wish would disappear from the internet tomorrow? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Oh yeah, so many, um, that I think the myth is that it's, you can't, there's mold everywhere, so you can't fix it.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Okay. That's not true. Okay. Yeah, 

Dr. Scott Sherr: you, there's something you can do about it. Even though there's mold everywhere, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: well, you can totally fix it and it's not unreasonable. Pediatricians get very frustrated. 'cause they're like, well, everybody has mold. I'm like, no they don't. It's okay. We can, we can, [00:47:00] we can test and we can treat and it is a fixable problem.

Dr. Melissa Jones: It's overwhelming, but 

Dr. Scott Sherr: yes. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. I love that. Okay, here's one. Um, if you had a giant billboard outside every pediatric clinic, what single message would you put on it? If you could? It could be a phrase, it could be a word, it could be, you know, whatever you feel. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Think about inflammation. It's all inflammation.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Perfect. That's 

Dr. Scott Sherr: like, love it. I love it. Yeah. I love it. That, I think that's a great one because I mean, Pia pediatricians are just so, like, like any conventional doc in practice of 15 minutes with patients, you don't have time to like, to dig into this stuff. Right. So it's, I think inflammation's a great one.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Um, yeah. Next one. If you could fast forward 10 years in, in the field, let's say in in your field now, pediatric neurology, what breakthrough are you hoping, uh, for that we've nailed at that point and things would be like so much easier for everybody. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yes. I want them to nail detox. I want that to not be a word that we hear, and it's so nebulous.

Dr. Melissa Jones: What does that mean? What are you detoxing? Right. That's, I want that to be legitimized [00:48:00] and I want it to be understood. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yes. I, I love that because that gets thrown around so much like your cleanses and your detoxes. Yeah. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Like people come all the time, can I do a cleanse? Well, what, what are we cleansing? Are we cleansing?

Dr. Melissa Jones: What parasite are we cleansing? Like what, you know, but, but, so I want that to be. Legitimized and figured out. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Those are great. Um, Melissa, the, I I love your answers to those questions. Um, I ask everybody at the end of the podcast a pretty simple question. Um, and this could be about our conversation today.

Dr. Scott Sherr: It can also about be about your, your life, your experience. The podcast is called Smarter or Not Harder, right? So we ask all of our guests at the end, what are three ways that we all can live smarter, not harder in everything that we do, any ideas? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Okay. I will say positive thoughts. You are your thoughts. I will say, um, gluten-free diet in America.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. There you go. Okay. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: And I will say sleep is our foundation. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. We're 

Dr. Melissa Jones: nothing without our sleep. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So how do you prioritize sleep, Melissa? [00:49:00] 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, so I've got a pretty decent wake sleep wake schedule. I go to bed at the same time every night and go to sleep, and I thankfully don't have trouble falling asleep.

Dr. Melissa Jones: Have a busy day, and then wake up at the same time every day. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: So that's your, I think that's a number one thing I always tell my patients as well is like, if you wanna have a sleep routine. Pick the exact time you go to bed every single night or very close to it. And your body and your brain will know. Um, I call like the Pavlovian response, having like the exact same things you do the five or 10 minutes before you go to bed every single night at the same time.

Dr. Scott Sherr: And then as soon as you hit the pillow typically lights out. So, um, so. Go ahead. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: No, I was just gonna say, and it's funny because I was in medicine, so I was a proud four to five hour a night sleeper for a long time and thought I am stronger than sleep. Sleep's not that important. And then I realized, oh, I am slowly killing myself.

Dr. Melissa Jones: So now 

Dr. Scott Sherr: sometimes, yeah, 

Dr. Melissa Jones: for many years now I have prioritized my sleep and it is a game [00:50:00] changer. So. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah, so I had shirts with my friends in medical school. They said sleep is for quitters, right? Yeah. And so it's unfortunately that kind of culture in the United States that this is what mm-hmm. We emphasize is sleep is something you do when you're dead, um, and that you don't need it.

Dr. Scott Sherr: But emphasized to all of you listening, all. Obviously all the practitioners know this as well, that, you know, one of the things we say at our companies, and Dr. Chad, who's our, one of our founders, our founder, he says, your day starts when you go to bed, not when you wake up. So it's the first thing you do every day, not the last thing.

Dr. Scott Sherr: And so, um, you know, I, I still work on that, but I'm, I'm trying to, I'm, I'm averaging more like around seven hours of sleep a night. So I'm getting there. Um, maybe one day I'll get more than that, but maybe when my kids aren't, you know, as young as they're, but, um. But Melissa, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Where can people find out more about you and about your practice and potentially work with you as well, if they're in the office, in the area? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah, so, um, my company is all in one piece, P-E-A-C-E ha piece. And, um, our website's, a IOP wellness.com. So you can find me online and [00:51:00] I'm, I'm here in Houston.

Dr. Scott Sherr: People see you out of state or are you just ever in state at this point? Do you see telemedicine kind of things? 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Yeah. So I had so many coming from outta state. I actually did get my license in all the Texas surrounding states. Okay. Um, as well as Kansas and Ohio. 'cause I just, I went up and over. Okay. So I do have license in about seven states now.

Dr. Scott Sherr: Okay. Cool. Well I think it sounds like you're a great resource and I know you have a nice website with information too. So again, thank you for being here and, uh, keep up the great work and I'll 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Thank you. 

Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. And it's been a pleasure. Okay. Have a great day. 

Dr. Melissa Jones: Thank you.